


Though recent books are bolder

by imperfectcircle



Series: Stories by theme: Romance [22]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Fix-It, M/M, MAG 160, No S5 spoilers, Scottish Safe House, Trans Martin Blackwood, a love letter to non-sexual physical affection, accidental animal acquisition, and to cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:14:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectcircle/pseuds/imperfectcircle
Summary: Martin returns from the village to find Jon crouching down on the wet grass outside the safe house, locked in a battle of wits with a small, very scruffy cat. The cat appears to be winning.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Stories by theme: Romance [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/327392
Comments: 78
Kudos: 354





	Though recent books are bolder

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to soupytwist for sterling beta services <3 All mistakes remain mine.  
> Thank you to Caffeinated_Kiz for coming up with the perfect name for the cat!
> 
> Content notes: There's a brief bit of Lonely content in here -- if you would like to skip it, please see end notes for start/end points.

**Day One**

Martin returns from the village to find Jon crouching down on the wet grass outside the safe house, locked in a battle of wits with a small, very scruffy cat. The cat appears to be winning. 

“Ah, Martin! Good, you’re back.” Jon spares him a brief glance before turning back to the cat. “It won’t let me look in its ear.”

“Okay?” Martin says. “Will any ear do? Do you want to look in one of mine?”

The cat has tufts of mottled orange and brown hair sticking up at odd angles. One of its ears is missing a chunk, and there’s a patch of skin visible on its tail. Said tail is swishing angrily as it glares at Jon. 

“Do you have something lodged in there that’s causing you pain?” Jon replies, glaring right back at the cat. “Because Professor Tickles does.”

“Professor Tickles,” Martin says flatly. Well, as flatly as he can, which honestly isn't very.

“I didn’t name it.” 

Then how— Oh. “I suppose that’s one way to use spooky eldrich powers?” Martin offers. 

Professor Tickles hisses and bushes its tail up in the universal symbol for, _No, Jon, you may not look in my ear._ Jon doesn’t hiss back, which Martin is honestly a little surprised by, but then they’ve all grown a lot as people recently. 

“I’m not going to stoop to its level,” Jon says, replying to Martin’s unvoiced thought. “Shit! Sorry, sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Martin says, then corrects himself to, “I mean, please keep trying not to read my mind, but I know you didn’t mean to. Wait. Wait. Does this mean you can read Mr Tickles’ mind?”

“Professor Tickles,” Jon corrects him absently, “and I think Ms, in as much as cats have a concept of gender. And no, not as such? I know facts about it — her — but she doesn’t have the kind of thoughts my mind can hold onto.”

Lucky cat. Martin considers the situation. He’s vaguely aware you shouldn’t feed cats bread and milk, unless that’s hedgehogs, but in the absence of mice, he’s not sure what to offer her. Fish? Cats probably eat fish. Unless the bones are a choking hazard? Or is that babies?

“What do cats eat, Jon?” 

Jon has a split second of vagueness, then delivers a short lecture on feline dietary requirements, which amounts to: the chicken thighs in Martin’s bag will do for now, but long term they’d best get some cat food. 

“We’re not keeping her,” Jon adds. 

Martin, who is not the one with grass stains on his knees from trying to get a stray cat to let him look in its ear, says nothing. 

**Day Two**

Professor Tickles wakes Martin up from a nightmare of fog and abandonment by biting his toe. A change is as good as a rest. 

Martin opens his eyes to see Jon lying next to him staring at him unblinkingly. He’s aware he should find it creepy and off-putting, but, well, it’s Jon. Add to that the fact that Martin has never before in his entire life been looked at like he’s the most interesting thing in the room — even when he’s been the only thing in the room — and off-putting is really not the effect it has. 

“Did you put cat food on my toe?” he asks. 

He squints at the foot of the bed, but Professor Tickles, mission accomplished, has retreated out of sight.

“What?” Jon’s voice is croaky. It’s absurdly endearing. 

“To get —” To get Professor Tickles to wake Martin up. “No. Never mind.”

Jon tips forward to kiss Martin lightly on the cheek. “I like watching you sleep,” he says. “Is that all right?”

Martin finds Jon’s hand under the covers and holds it. “That’s all right.”

Professor Tickles must realise that mission is very much not accomplished, and yowls at them from wherever she's now hiding. 

“We’re not keeping her,” Jon says. 

Martin waits. 

“But we should probably take her to a vet. Get her checked out. She might be microchipped.”

They've agreed that Jon would do his best to avoid the _ominous knowing of things_ thing, but if Martin were a betting man he’d stake the house — or, well, isolated murder cottage — on there being no way taking her to the vet will find them her owner. Still. It’s something to do. 

“A quest!” he says. 

“A quest.”

Professor Tickles bites Martin's toe again. It's a fair point, they do need breakfast first. 

#

No signal, no internet, and no creepy acquisition of knowledge through unwilling alignment with a god of fear, means they have to ask at the village where the nearest vet is. 

Martin drives. Jon can, but he does so in an impatient and alarming way that neither of them are keen to inflict on the Professor. This leaves Jon with the unenviable task of trying to keep the rucksack they’ve improvised into a cat carrier from exploding in a mass of fur and claws. At least he heals quickly.

"Martin," Jon says once they're parked, serious enough that Martin has a brief but very valid moment of terror. "If I don't make it out of here alive—" 

"That's not funny," Martin tells him firmly. 

It is a bit funny, though, and even if it weren't, the smile in Jon's eyes is worth suffering through any number of appalling and inappropriate jokes. 

Martin leaves Jon in the car for a deeply confusing conversation with Mrs Miggins at the Post Office, which only resolves itself when he realises she thinks one of the cows is sick. How she thought Jon (or "your dear young man" as she insists on calling him) would have got the cow into a rucksack will have to remain a mystery, but a tiny quiet part of him agrees that if anyone could, it would be Jon. 

(Or Jared Hopworth, a slightly louder part of him adds. He decides not to share that thought with Jon.) 

Mrs Miggins' directions to "young Sammy, such a sweet boy" the next village over are fortunately more accurate than her description of the vet himself. Samuel Adair must be at least 60, with a glare to rival Jon's and no interest in pleasantries. He examines Professor Tickles with brusque, careful competence, while Jon helps him hold her and bristles silently at him every time she whimpers or squeaks. 

There's no way to whisper something calming to Jon — like, _he's literally a vet, Jon, I think we can trust him not to hurt a cat_ — so Martin just puts a hand at Jon's elbow. Jon doesn't look away from where Adair is examining Professor Tickles' ears, but he relaxes slightly into the touch. 

**Day Four**

"We're not keeping her," Jon says when Martin pads into the kitchen to find Jon trying to convince Professor Tickles to eat her antibiotics-laced premium quality cat food. 

Martin says nothing. The Professor and her food bowl are between him and the kettle, and he has the feeling two humans looming over her would not improve the situation for anyone. Instead, he drops a gentle kiss on Jon's shoulder and lets him get on with it. 

**Day Seven**

Martin doesn't mean to get lost. He never does. But sometimes it's easier not to think about where your feet are taking you, and harder to think about why you might care. 

The landscape is bleak in a way he feels he should like more than he does. There's poetry to it, but not his kind of poetry — he's never been one for rolling ridges and blasted moors — so on top of everything else, it makes him feel inadequate, too. Useless, boring Martin, not clever enough to be inspired by the legendary beauty of the Scottish Highlands. Not deep enough to see what other people do. Not enough, not ever. 

It's pathetic, really. To be lost on the wild Scottish moors and not appreciate it. His feet have taken him somewhere his heart can't follow, and isn't that always the way? What's even the point of him, really, when you get down to it? He'd thought he was saving Jon, but of course he wasn't — he was just a pawn in a petty squabble between two terrible men, and in the end became just another problem Jon had to solve. 

_That's not true. That's not true and he knows it's not true. Look at him, so pathetic he's even wasting Jon's hard work in saving him. What is the point of him, really? Really?_

Martin didn't mean to get lost. But now he is, would it be the worst thing in the world if he stayed lost? Jon can find him if it's important — if he needs Martin to drive him somewhere, maybe, or if he gets hungry before Basira can send them some statements — but if not, well, it's not as if it matters. It's not as if he matters. 

There's a pressure on his chest. A crushing, awful, cold, painful— No. That's not right. There's a pressure on his chest. It's warm. It's solid, but not crushing. It's warm and solid and it's loud, cutting through the frozen silence of the unending hills with— It's purring. There's a pressure on his chest and it's warm, and it's solid, and it's purring. 

Martin opens his eyes. He's lying on the ratty couch, head at an angle that's going to be painful when he finally comes back to himself, and on his chest is the Professor, curled up into a tiny ball with her chin propped on her paws. She's staring at him with a gaze not unlike Jon's, purring like a buzzsaw. 

The fog recedes. "How are you making that noise?" he asks. They've had her, what, a week now? And this is the first time he's heard her do anything but yell for food or whimper-squeak in fear.

She blinks at him slowly. 

Martin _thinks_ it's cats and not hedgehogs who show affection through slow blinking. Hedgehogs are the ones you have to check unlit bonfires for before setting them on fire (them the bonfires, not them the hedgehogs), and cats are the ones who blink at you. Unless that's babies, too? Babies are definitely not the ones who go to sleep in unlit bonfires, he's almost certain. 

"You are too small for a sound that big," he tells her firmly, being sure to blink slowly as he does so, just in case he's actually remembered an animal fact right for once in his life. 

"Thank you," he adds. "I know you didn't— I know it's just because I'm a really big, warm cushion. But thank you. I appreciate it."

She yawns at him, wide and slow, her cat-food breath hot against his face, and then closes her eyes again. 

Martin wonders if cat yawns mean anything. Probably they mean, _Shut up, human, I'm trying to sleep. I have chosen you for your padding and homeostasis, not your conversational skills,_ but who knows? Perhaps they mean, _You're welcome._

**Day Eight**

Martin bites down on the, _You don't have to,_ threatening to escape. They both know Jon doesn't have to, but since last night, when Martin told him about his brush with the Lonely, Jon's been doing his best to make it clear just how much he wants to. How much he wants to lace their fingers together when they're sitting opposite each other at the tiny kitchen table, even if it means they have to eat their pasta one-handed. How much he wants to hug Martin from behind while Martin's doing the washing up, dotting kisses absentmindedly on his shoulders rather than making himself useful by doing the drying. How much he wants to sit on the floor when Martin is on the sofa so he can rest his head on Martin's thigh, so he can turn whenever he wants to press a kiss to Martin's knee. 

"You have no idea how much I missed you," he'd said to Martin yesterday, not an accusation, just a simple statement of fact. "Of course you don't. Foolish of me to assume." 

Martin had wanted to apologise anyway. Might have, if Professor Tickles hadn't chosen that moment to headbutt his ankle and loudly yell to have her head petted. The fact remains that neither Martin's Loneliness nor his much more prosaic small-l loneliness are Jon's fault. Jon had told him how he felt, that first night after Peter died — it's up to Martin to learn how to believe him. 

"I like your smile," Jon says, breaking Martin's reverie. "You smiled at me when I got back from that awful stint in America and I thought, _Oh, well that's something, at least._ "

This is the other thing Jon has been doing, along with stepping up his campaign of physical affection. Every time he does it, Martin's heart clenches painfully and then releases just a little bit easier. 

Martin should say things back, probably? But Jon's listened to the tapes. He knows. 

"I like _your_ smile," Martin says anyway. He'd never told that to the tapes, after all. "It starts in your eyes and doesn't always get all the way to your mouth, but I like it either way."

Professor Tickles yells and bats at his hand, which had briefly stopped petting her. 

"Yes, yes, we like your smile too," Jon tells her. "Even if you do play obvious favourites."

Much to Jon's disgust, Professor Tickles now has a favourite lap to sit in and a favourite set of hands to pet her, and neither belong to Jon.

"She's got good taste," Martin says. Out of him and Jon, only one of the two of them has years of experience coaxing difficult, skittish creatures into accepting basic comforts. The main trick is to put the chicken thighs or tea or whatever else in easy access and then leave them to it, rather than looming over them muttering about how the Admiral never caused this much trouble.

"That she has," Jon says with a sincerity that twines itself around Martin's heart. 

**Day Twelve**

"Your cat wants to go outside," Jon tells Martin, poking him in the thigh with a socked toe. They're both on the sofa — Martin sitting normally, Jon sitting sideways, his feet wedged under Martin's thighs until this unprompted assault.

Martin bats at Jon's foot with the hand not holding his book. He thinks he means to swat Jon's foot away, but instead, without his permission, his hand ends up gently resting on Jon's boney ankle. 

"Your cat can use the bedroom window," Martin says. His thumb strokes Jon's ankle once, twice. 

"I closed it," Jon says. 

Martin looks up. "Why?"

Jon is smirking. It's ridiculously, unnecessarily attractive. "To see what you'd do now."

**Day Fifteen**

Professor Tickles has started headbutting Martin's book out of his hand when she wants his attention. 

The first time she did it, Jon laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes, and Martin nearly threw the dislodged book at him. He'd never seen Jon laugh like that before. He wants to see it again.

Now she just has to lightly butt the book — or phone, or notebook, or laundry — and he will sigh and put it down to lavish her with affection. 

"The price of popularity," Jon calls through from the bedroom. "And no, I didn't _see_ her do it, I just recognise the sigh." 

He should do. It's the same sigh Martin gives when Jon does the human equivalent of the Professor's headbutt — poking him with a foot, draping his arms around Martin from behind, coughing pointedly — for very similar reasons. 

"I like the way you frown when you read," Martin says instead of answering directly. It took him a few days, but he's started doing it off his own bat now, rather than just when Jon goes first. "You always look so angry that the words are on the page and not already in your head, like it's a personal insult that you have to go to the trouble of reading them."

Jon doesn't answer immediately. He comes through from the bedroom, barefoot in boxers and swamped in one of Martin's pajama tops. "I'm not sure that was a compliment."

The pajama top is red plaid. It's part of a matching set, but Jon likes to wear Martin's tops, and likes it best, Martin's found, when Martin goes to bed just wearing the bottoms, so Jon can rest his head on Martin's bare chest and listen to his heartbeat. It's the sort of thing that Martin is dimly surprised he's not more self-conscious about — even post-surgery, his bare chest has never been something he liked people to dwell on — but when it's Jon looking, being seen feels the same as being loved. 

"It wasn't meant to be," Martin answers Jon cheerfully. "It was just meant to be true."

"Well, I like the way your face goes soft whenever the Professor lets you pet her," Jon says. "Which is always, so I don't know why you're still surprised by it, but every time it's like you've been given a, a gift you weren't expecting." 

It is, so Martin can't really argue with that. 

"Will you come to bed soon?" Jon asks. "I missed you." 

Martin feels his face do something not a million miles away from what Jon has just described. 

Jon ducks his head, pleased, and disappears back into the bedroom.

**Day Eighteen**

The Professor now grudgingly allows Jon to pet her. Sometimes. If Martin is close enough that she feels secure, but not so close that he could be the one petting her instead. 

"Smugness is not your most attractive feature," Jon tells Martin when Professor Tickles sniffs Jon's proffered hand and deliberately turns away to butt Martin's knee instead. 

The three of them are taking advantage of the brief sunshine to sit (Jon and Martin) and prowl (Professor Tickles) outside for once. Daisy's murder cottage doesn't have lawn furniture, shockingly, but they've found a blanket to sit on, the fringe of which the Professor has been pouncing on as it stirs in the wind. 

"Sorry, can't hear you over the purring."

It can't be too unattractive on him, because Jon takes Martin's free hand and kisses it. 

"I like you _so much_ ," Jon says, voice unexpectedly raw. 

The day Jon rescued Martin and killed Peter, he used another word, too. Martin didn't say it back. 

He could say it now? In the cold sunshine of the Scottish autumn, sitting on an ancient blanket with a purring cat and the man who sees him and knows him and likes him more for it, not less. The man who watches him sleep and listens to his heartbeat and kisses the inside of his wrist first thing in the morning. He could tell Jon anything, and Jon would— Martin knows, Martin _knows_ , as sure as he knows his own breath that Jon would still love him. And, because the distinction is important, because both matter, he knows that Jon would still like him, too. 

**Day Nineteen**

Martin doesn't have to go down to the village to get more custard creams. Nor does he have to stop in at the Post Office and buy a bunch of flowers from a beaming Mrs Miggins, whose thoughts and feelings about how nice it is to see young couples treat each other to a bit of romance she shares with cheerful abandon. Nor does he have to take a quick middle of the day shower and change into his good jeans. But he does and he does and he does, because Jon has spent the last coming-up-for-three-weeks showing Martin that he meant what he said, and today Martin is going to say it back. 

He rehearses it in his head in the shower. _Jon, I really like you too. And more than that, I—_

He rehearses it in his head while putting the final dose of antibiotics into the Professor's ear and kissing her on her nose for being such a good, patient girl. _Jon, you know you're my favourite person in the world, don't you? And I—_

He rehearses it in his head while making the tea, while putting out the biscuits on the least chipped plate in Daisy's meagre collection. _Jon. Jon. You've been so good to me these last few weeks. So patient. I just want you to know, I—_

"Don't look at me like that," Jon says in the other room. He's speaking in a low, gentle voice. "I know I'm not Martin, but I've been reliably informed by other cats that I deliver very good scritches."

The Professor gives one of her _sometimes I just like to yell_ yells and trots into the kitchen, followed by a grumpy-looking Jon. 

"Your cat is a monster," Jon says. "And trust me, I know monsters."

Martin opens his mouth to defend Jon's cat's honour. "I love you," he says. "No. Wait. I mean, I do, but I wasn't going to— Biscuits. I was going to biscuits. And flowers. And tell you I love you. Which I do. But properly. I was going to tell you properly."

Jon stares at Martin, blank shock written on his face, and then smiles. It's a sun-coming-out, first-flowers-of-spring, lost-a-penny-and-found-a-sixpence smile, the kind Jon's face is unused to and Martin's heart could live in forever. 

Jon takes the plate out of Martin's hand carefully and sets it down, then pulls Martin into a fierce, tight hug. 

"I love you so much," he says into Martin's shoulder. "So much."

"You too," Martin tells him. They cling to each other, urgent, vital, and Martin feels something in him shatter and be reborn. "So much."

At their feet, Professor Tickles yells and bats Martin's ankle with a paw. 

"I think your cat is jealous," Martin says. 

Jon's voice is overflowing with happiness. "I think your cat can wait her turn."

**Day Twenty-Two**

Jon rests his head on Martin's bare chest and gives a quiet, satisfied _hmm_. 

"What?" Martin asks. 

"Nothing." Jon shifts his body to fit more snugly against Martin's side, one unbroken line of contact. From her preferred sleeping spot under the bed, the Professor gives her, _I'm here, are you here?_ yell. 

"We're both still here," Martin says, overlapping with Jon's, "Yes, he's here."

"She likes it best when we're both here," Martin says reproachfully. 

"Please, like she cares if I live or die," Jon replies.

Neither of them mention the fact that if Martin goes to bed first, the Professor will come and herd Jon into the bedroom like a tiny yowling sheepdog. 

Instead, Martin just wraps his arm a little tighter around Jon, puts his free hand over the hand Jon has resting on Martin's belly. 

**Day Twenty-Three**

Martin opens the door to see the Professor sitting on Jon's lap, purring. It's so unexpected that it takes him a moment to process the rest of the scene: Jon is weeping; there is a pile of ashes on the table; a dozen tape records squat around him, hungry and whirring. 

"What— Jon? Are you— What happened? What's happening?" 

Jon doesn't bother to swipe at his eyes. One hand comes up to absently pet Professor Tickles. She accepts it as her due. 

"Jon?"

"She bit me," Jon says. He raises the hand that isn't petting the Professor so Martin can see the already-healing bite marks, the still-wet blood. 

Martin claps a hand over his own mouth to give himself time to think, stopping the tide of, _Are you okay? What did you do? What's going on?_ before it can overwhelm him. Whatever has happened — whatever is happening — they must be safe for now, or Jon wouldn't just be sitting there. 

Something to do with the statements? Which Jon has clearly burned, so that's a start. Something bad to do with the statements, but it's over? Stalled? Not an immediate threat. 

One by one, the tape recorders start switching themselves off. A few even vanish back to wherever they go when they're not fucking up everything Martin loves. 

And then Professor Tickles stands up, arches her back in a stretch, and jumps from Jon's lap onto the table. Slowly and deliberately, she knocks the remaining tape recorders off the table, one by one, then yawns, turns round three times, and curls up next to the ashes to sleep. 

Jon stares at her. "She's not—" he starts. "I honestly think she's really just a cat?" he says, voice full of wonder. 

Martin's still covering his mouth with one hand. He removes it slowly, steps forward so he can draw Jon into a hug. 

"Okay," he says at last, when he can finally trust himself to speak. "Okay, love. Let's get you cleaned up."

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END
> 
> Detailed content notes: Lonely content starts at the start of Day Seven ("Martin doesn't mean to get lost.") and ends a few paragraphs later ("There's a pressure on his chest.")
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos always much appreciated! 
> 
> Please feel free to come say hi on twitter [@krfabian](https://twitter.com/krfabian).
> 
> Title from Tom Lehrer's [Smut](https://genius.com/Tom-lehrer-smut-lyrics), because I continue to think I'm funny. 
> 
> And as a special treat, here are the section titles from my scrivener doc: 
> 
> Day 01 - Cat appears, they are DEFINITELY not keeping her, Martin  
> Day 02a - Cat bites Martin's toe  
> Day 02b - A quest to the vet!  
> Day 04 - Antibiotics, not keeping her Martin shut up  
> Day 07 - Cat rescues Martin  
> Day 08 - I like your smile  
> Day 12 - Trollololol  
> Day 15 - Headbutts, pajamas and Jon misses Martin from the next room  
> Day 18 - Not saying it  
> Day 19 - Saying it  
> Day 22 - Snuggles  
> Day 23 - Cat rescues Jon


End file.
